books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: June 4 – June 10

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Ummmm.  Yeah.  So I thought I didn’t read much last week – and then this week I read even less.  Why?  Well it was a super busy week at work – and then I spent the weekend back at my old Uni celebrating 50 years of the student radio station that I spent so many hours* in over the course of my degree.  And just like back in my undergrad days – I spent so much time with my student radio friends that I didn’t really do anything else.  And you know what?  I’m not even sorry.  There’ll be other weeks and more time to read – but the chance to spend time with people you haven’t seen in a decade doesn’t come around every day.  In fact, this was the biggest gathering of  us all since a bunch of them graduated at the end of my second year, right before I went off to spend my year in France.  And it was amazing.

Read:

One Man’s Meat by Colin Watson

Old Baggage by Lissa Evans

Murder in the Telephone Exchange by June Wright

Started:

Gender Games by Juno Dawson

Raven Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran

L is for Lawless by Sue Grafton

Angelina’s Choice by Nick Bryan

One book bought – and I was so busy catching up with my friends that I didn’t go into even one of the Oxfam bookshops in York, let alone both of them, so no books bought!

*Probably more hours than I spent on my actual degree if I’m honest.  But hey, I honestly believe that I wouldn’t be have the career I have in my day job without all those hours.

Book of the Week, Children's books, children's books, Forgotten books

Book of the Week: Strangers in Fleet Street

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This week’s BotW returns to my old stomping ground of Girl’s Own fiction.  However it is slightly out of my usual wheel house in that it’s not a school story, but a career book. Compared to my reading of school stories, I haven’t read many career books, but one of my favourite books that my mum passed on from her childhood was Shirley Flight, Air Hostess so a book in a series called Sally Baxter, Girl Reporter definitely appealed to me.  I found it in the Oxfam Bookshop in York (on the same trip that I picked up two Oxenhams and Dorita Fairlie Bruce) and I bought it, because after all, I am a journalist after spending my childhood pretending to be one, so what could be more perfect?!But this is definitely a recommendation for people who are afficiados of the genre – because it has some… let’s call them issues.

Hardback copy of Strangers in Fleet Street

So, Strangers in Fleet Street is apparently the 15th book in the Sally Baxter series and it sees Sally, who is a teenager working as a reporter at a national newspaper, taking charge of a group of foreign readers of the Evening Cry (her paper) who won a competition to spend two weeks in London.  She’s their guide – but she’s also hoping to get some stories from their visit.  Sally soon makes friends with most of the visitors but a series of disappearances – of money, of earrings and of a person – lead to suspicion being thrown on her little group and Sally is determined to unmask the real culprit – not just for the scoop but to save her new friend’s reputations.

This ticked pretty much all of my boxes – it’s got a mystery and a bit of adventure.  It has a fun cast of characters and it has a lead character who is doing an interesting job, in a male-dominated profession.  OK Sally may be on human interest duty in this book, but she’s definitely doing the job and she’s not the only one – there’s a more senior woman reporter too.  Looking at the information about the other titles in the series that I found here, it seems that Sally seems to get a lot of the softer stories – as opposed to crime, trials or politics, but then court rooms and council meetings are hard to make sound exciting – but a lot of it involves globe-trotting.  Even without that list, Sally mentions trips to Hong Kong and North Africa – so it does sound like an exciting and appealing life, which has got to be one of the major aims of a career novel.  My quibbles with it are all around some of the rather old-fashioned (putting it nicely) attitudes.  Sally herself is very fair but the way the young North African boy is portrayed is definitely very stereotypical and of its time.  And the resolution to the mystery involved another trope that I’m not very keen on, but I can’t say more than that because it’s a huge spoiler.  So lets say that I won’t be lending this to my 10-year-old niece.  But if you are a fan of Girl’s Own fiction and know where its weaknesses and blind spots are, this is a very enjoyable way to spend a few hours.  And I’ve already been on the second hand book sites looking for more in the series.

As I mentioned, my book came from a charity bookshop, the secondhand dealers have lots of copies of various books in this series (please don’t beat me to them) but unless this is your secret niche book love, it’s probably not going to be one for you- and if it is, you already know how to source this sort of thing, so no links this week!

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: May 28 – June 3

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A slower week than usual for me in the end.  I had some fun days out with my sister and a night out with a friend and that – coupled with work – meant I read less than I was hoping to.  Still at least the May stats were healthy and I’ve got the rest of June to get myself back on track!  On the brightside, the a few of the books that I did read came from the to-read shelf so at least I got that down a little bit!

Read:

K is for Killer by Sue Grafton

The Naked Nuns by Colin Watson

Richardson’s First Case by Basil Thomson

Strangers in Fleet Street by Sylvia Edwards

Lords and Ladies: A Play by Terry Pratchett, adapted by Irana Brown

Lord of Misrule by Sally Wentworth

Sex Criminals: Vol 1 by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky

Started:

L is for Lawless by Sue Grafton

Angelina’s Choice by Nick Bryan

Murder in the Telephone Exchange by June Wright

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran

Only one ebook bought – and another one that I had pre-ordered turned up this week too.  Sidenote: I love it when a book that you preordered arrives and you’d completely forgotten that its release day was imminent and you have a little unexpected (and guilt-free!) treat waiting for you on the Kindle (or occasionally on the doorstep).

books, stats

May Stats

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New books read this month:  34*

Books from the to-read pile: 6

Ebooks read: 27

Books from the Library book pile: 1

Non-fiction books: 1

#ReadHarder categories completed: 7

Pop Sugar categories completed: 12

Most read author: Sue Grafton – four more from the Kinsey Milhone series! (Colin Watson close behind though with three more Flaxborough books)

Books read this year:  157

Books bought:  11 (6 books and 5 ebooks)

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf: 561 (I don’t have copies of all of these!)

*Includes some short stories/novellas/comics (3 this month)

Book of the Week, women's fiction

Book of the Week: In the Unlikely Event

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A bit of women’s fiction for this week’s BotW pick – and I’ve gone with Judy Blume’s adult novel In the Unlikely Event. This had been sitting on my shelf for a while (it was one of the books that got lent to my mum during the great renovation of 2017) and it took me a while to get to it – and to read it – because my copy was hardback and we all know that I don’t take them on the commute with me.

Cover of In the Unlikely Event

In the Unlikely Event tells the story of the worst year of Mimi Ammerman’s life.  At the start of the book we meet her as she heads back to her home town of Elizabeth for the 35 anniversary of three plane crashes that hit her home town within a couple of months.  That was the year that she was 15 and as well as all the usual teenage angst, love affairs, school and family problems, Mimi and her friends had to deal with death falling from the sky towards them. The reader follows the community through the tumultuous period that changed all of their lives forever.

I read a lot of Judy Blume’s children’s books when I was in the right age bracket for them.  Between her and Paual Danziger my early views of what life was life in the US were formed.  From Scoliosis, to party line telephones, to periods and a lot in between, so much of what I knew about young women and teenage girls in America came from what I read in her books.  And, although she’s writing for an adult audience in this, I could feel echos of that coming through.  Mimi’s world isn’t that far different to Margaret’s but as well as seeing the world through her eyes, we also see it through the eyes of some of the adults around her and some of the older teenagers.  And it’s engrossing.  I particularly liked the newspaper articles written by Mimi’s uncle Henry.  They really set the scene for what’s happening and present the official point of view that Mimi doesn’t really see.

It is a book about three plane crashes happening though – but although I had to take some breaks from reading it, it wasn’t as bad as some of the other books about tragedies that I’ve read.  Definitely cope-able with.  And lots of you out there probably won’t even have to take breaks – I’m just a bit of a wuss.  I hadn’t really realised when I started reading this that the three plane crashes in Elizabeth actually happened.  Or if I had, I’d forgotten.  And I found out midway through wen I went googling because it seemed almost too implausible.  At university I did a History and Literature module, and my final essay question was “Literature has to be plausible, history only has to be true.  Discuss”.  If I was writing that essay now, this book would definitely be getting a mention.

Anyway, this was a really interesting read and I know I’ll be lending it on to other people.  I can’t remember exactly where I got my copy from – it was either the magic bookshelf at work or from one of the work booksales – but because I’ve had it for so long it’s been out in paperback for a couple of years nearly.  You should be able to get hold of it from any good sided bookshop or all the usual suspects – as well as on Kindle or Kobo.  As is traditional, I suggest buying from the Big Green Bookshop – they’ll post it out to you and have been running a really lovely “Buy a Stranger a Book” twitter campaign on Wednesdays that will gladden your heart.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: May 21 – May 27

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I took advantage of the bank holiday weekend and the healthy state of my read list of the week to do a bit of a 50 pages and out cull on the to-read shelves. And I gave up on the Stella Gibbons too – I think there may have been a reason why that one was unpublished in her lifetime!  I’m also quite pleased with my progress over the last couple of weeks in getting the long-running pile down too.  Go me.

Read:

Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean

The Flaxborough Crab by Colin Watson

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

J is for Judgement by Sue Grafton

Broomsticks over Flaxborough by Colin Watson

A Most Novel Revenge by Ashley Weaver

39 Winks by Kathleen Valenti

Started:

K is for Killer by Sue Grafton

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Three e-books bought.  No actual books – and I’ve cleared a bit of space on the shelf too.  Bonus.

 

Book of the Week, mystery, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: Judge Walden – Back in Session

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Another change of direction for this week’s BotW pick.  I read a lot last week, and a lot of it was good, but Judge Walden: Back in Session seemed like a fairly obvious pick – even if it is the second in a series, and not just because it is out on Thursday.  And I know I keep saying it, but the summer reading reccs post is coming up, so more of last week’s books may yet get a mention!

Cover of Judge Walden: Back in Session

Back in Session is the second book about Charlie Walden, resident judge (that means he’s in charge) at Berdmonsey Crown Court.  His main aim in life is just to get on with his job – trying criminals – without attracting the attention of either the press or, even worse, the Civil Servants.  He calls them the Grey Smoothies and is constantly on the watch for their latest targets or cost cutting idea.  He also has to manage his three fellow judges – who all have different ideas about the law and how it should be applied and aren’t afraid of expressing them.  Charlie’s wife – a vicar – is also a regular character who offers insight and support depending on what’s going on at court. The book is broken down into a series of cases, each covering one trial but which either have some relevance to wider life at the court or which have something happening in the background at the same time.  Each case is about novella length and as you get to the end of the book all the threads that have been bubbling along build to a satisfying conclusion.

I bought the first book in this series after reading the first case in it (which is free on Kindle) and both the books really, really worked for me.  The characters are interesting, the setting is fun and different and it’s all knitted together so well.  The author is a former resident judge himself and so presumably knows exactly what he’s talking about. As a journalist in my “proper” job,  I’ve done my share of court reporting over the years, and all the court scenes in this really worked for me – except with all the boring stuff taken out!  Because it’s broken down into cases, I think it would make a great book to read on the train or on a plane – it’s easy to pick up and put down without losing the sense of what’s going on.

Back in Session does build on the framework from the first book – so I definitely suggest reading Walden of Berdmonsey first – but if you don’t, I don’t think it would be the end of the world.  My copy of the new book came from NetGalley, but I bought book one on a Kindle deal, so it might be worth adding that to your watchlist as the price may drop when book two comes out.  If you want to get hold of a copy for your very own, Back in Session is available to pre-order in Kindle, Kobo or in paperback from Amazon, your friendly local bookshop or Big Green Books.  The first book is also in all the same places (Kindle/Kobo/Amazon paperback/Big Green Bookshop) or if you want a free taster, you can try Walden’s First Case, but I could only find that on Kindle.  I’m hoping we haven’t heard the last of the Judges of Berdmonsey Crown Court.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: May 14 – May 20

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I spent a couple of days in Glasgow for work last week – which involved 11+ hours on a train to get up there and back, so I got a bit of reading done and a few long runners ticked off the list (and some progress on a few more too).  I’m almost pleased with myself.

Read:

I is for Innocent by Sue Grafton

Fowl of the House of Usher by JR Ripley

Custard Heart by Dorothy Parker

Judge Walden: Back in Session by Peter Murphy

How to Marry a Werewolf by Gail Carriger

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Beyond Control by Kit Rocha

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Started:

J is for Judgement by Sue Grafton

A Most Novel Revenge by Ashley Weaver

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

The Templars by Dan Jones

Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean

Pure Juliet by Stella Gibbons

One book and one ebook bought.  Progress again!

Book of the Week, reviews, Young Adult

Book of the Week: Clean

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Taking a break from the run of romance novels as Books of the Week to go for something completely different: Juno Dawson’s new YA novel Clean.  There were a couple of strong contenders for BotW, but this blew me away when I read it.  You will be hearing more of some of the other books from last week though – there’s one on there that’s not out in the UK yet that’s definitely going on one of my summer reading list posts at the very least.

Cover of CLEAN by Juno Dawson

Clean is the story of Lexi Volkov, the socialite daughter of a Russian hotel millionaire who definitely isn’t hooked on hard drugs and really doesn’t need to be in rehab.  Or at least that’s what she’d thinks.  She’s been checked into an exclusive treatment centre by her brother after nearly overdosing and the book follows her as she works her way through her treatment.  This is a Young Adult book, but it is dealing with a properly adult subject matter and in a very upfront way and realistic way.  I think this is one for the older end of the YA market – probably over 14 – maybe a bit older – although I was definitely reading stuff like this by GCSE sort of stage.  I found this so readable that I wanted to keep going – but had to take a break or two because it is a lot to take in and deal with.

Lexi is a brilliant character – at the start she is very abrasive and incredibly hard to like – and that’s by design I think.  It’s her addictions and the selfishness of the addict speaking rather than her real personality.  I only really started to like her about two thirds of the way through – may be later – and started really wanting her to succeed but even then she had her moments.  The book is also packed with interesting characters and great representation.  I don’t have any experience of inpatient treatment, but the book felt like was based on fact and reality – even if sometimes I wondered if there shouldn’t be some more staff around.  But then a bit of artistic licence is definitely allowable, and anyway as I’ve said – I don’t know anything about the reality of an expensive private rehab facility. I did have a few other minor quibbles and thought the ending was really clever – but I can’t say much more about any of that without spoiling things and breaking my rules about that sort of thing.

What I will say though is that this probably needs a trigger warning for pretty much everything – and not just for the drug taking and drug addiction.  As I said earlier, it’s definitely for the older end of the YA market, and I needed to take breaks while reading this.  But then as I’m a massive wimp who often doesn’t read books like this because they’re too dark for me, that’s probably not surprising.

I got my copy of Clean via NetGalley, but it’s out now and available in all the usual formats – Kindle and Kobo (and only £2.99 at time of writing) as well as paperback from all the usual sources.  I’d also expect to be able to find this fairly easily in an actual bookshop and may be even the supermarkets..  I’ve got another of Dawson’s earlier YA books sitting on the TBR shelf along with her non-fiction adult book The Gender Games and this has made me thing that I really need to get to them sooner rather than later.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: May 7 – May 13

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Much more like it this week – and I’ve made some progress on some of the other long runners too.  Feeling much happier with myself.

Read:

Eternity Ring by Patricia Wentworth

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory

Making Up by Lucy Parker

Lethal Literature by Kym Roberts

Triage by Tara Crescent

Calamity in Kent by John Rowland

Clean by Juno Dawson

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse

Dead as a Doornail by Tonya Kappes

Started:

Pure Juliet by Stella Gibbons

Beyond Control by Kit Rocha

I is for Innocent by Sue Grafton

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

The Templars by Dan Jones

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean

Three books and one ebook, which is not quite as well behaved, but hey, I’m not perfect!